Maxine Waters Agrees To Pay Nearly $70K In Campaign Finance Fines

Time to pay up…

Progressive California Rep. Maxine Waters has agreed to pay a $68,000 fine after an investigation found her campaign had violated multiple election rules.

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) said the House lawmaker’s 2020 campaign committee, Citizens for Waters, violated several campaign finance laws in a tranche of documents recently released.

The FEC accused Citizens for Waters of “failing to accurately report receipts and disbursements in calendar year 2020,” “knowingly accepting excessive contributions” and “making prohibited cash disbursements,” according to one document that appears to be a legally binding agreement that allows both parties to avoid going to court.

Waters’ committee agreed to pay the civil fine as well as “send its treasurer to a Commission-sponsored training program for political committees within one year of the effective date of this Agreement.”

“Respondent shall submit evidence of the required registration and attendance at such event to the Commission,” the document said.

Citizens for Waters had accepted excessive campaign contributions from seven people totaling $19,000 in 2019 and 2020, the investigation found, despite the maximum legal individual contribution being capped at $2,800.

The committee offloaded those excessive donations, albeit in an “untimely” fashion, the document said.

Waters’ campaign committee also “made four prohibited cash disbursements that were each in excess of $100, totaling $7,000,” the FEC said. 

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Waters, the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, has served in Congress since 1991.

It is not the first time, however, that Waters has generated public scrutiny.

In 2023, a Fox News Digital investigation found that Waters’ campaign paid her daughter $192,300 to pay for a “slate mailer” operation between Jan. 2021 and Dec. 2022. (RELATED: All in the Family: Maxine Waters Continues to Pay Daughter With Campaign Cash)

As Fox News reports:

Since 2003, Karen Waters has received over $1 million in payments from her mother to her and her company, Progressive Connections, for campaign-related services.

Federal Elections Commission (FEC) data reviewed by Fox News Digital shows the payments range from the hundreds to the tens of thousands of dollars for a variety of costs, including “slate mailer management” fees, “campaign managing services,” and paying for a “band for [a] holiday event.”

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